An aviation expert says Dundee Airport would have to maximise income from other sources if the decision by Loganair to cut two of its three flights was not to prove terminal for the facility.
David Learmount, a former RAF pilot and qualified flying instructor who has written on aviation issues since 1979, said other airports had been forced to look at leveraging extra revenue from their real estate to shore up incomes from regular flight operations.
Asked if the airport could survive on the income generated by a single scheduled flight, Mr Learmount who is operations editor at Flightglobal simply answered ”no”.
However, he stressed that airports did not solely rely on income from airlines to stay afloat and Dundee does have some hangar space where maintenance operations are carried out and is also home to Tayside Aviation, a flight training school.
”There are all sorts of things that airports do to enable them,” Mr Learmount said. ”An airport has the opportunity to develop more than one income stream.
“Ceasing flights obviously deprices it of some of that, but there are other income streams. It is up to the airport to decide whether it can continue to operate or not.”
Scottish Chambers of Commerce have long campaigned for improved air links as a vital tool in the underpinning of economic growth north of the border.
However, head of policy and public affairs Garry Clark said the air sector in Scotland was limited by a number of factors and said a fund was required that could help bring new routes to Scotland.
He said: ”Obviously all of Scotland’s airports are regional within a UK context and one of our serious concerns is that our airports are being hamstrung in terms of the development and maintenance of new routes by a number of factors, including the fact that levels of air passenger duty are set at a rate far more appropriate to managing constrained capacity in the South East of England rather than encouraging the development of regional air services.
”We believe that air passenger duty should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament, as had been proposed by the Calman Commission back in 2009, and we continue to make representations to this end, most recently to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to the Scottish Secretary.
”In addition, we believe that proceeds from a devolved APD could be reinvested in the creation of an air route marketing fund aimed at attracting new air services to all of Scotland’s airport.
”The previous route development fund, operated by the then Scottish Executive until 2007, had a strong track record of bringing new air services to Scotland, including to Dundee Airport.”Ryanair does not rule out interestRyanair may be interested in flying from Dundee if the operators of the beleaguered airport approach the budget Irish airline for discussions about the possibility, writes Andrew Argo.
Stephen McNamara, Ryanair’s head of communications, said from his Dublin office: ”We are interested in talking to any airport that is interested in growth at low cost.”
Ryanair have in the past said they might be interested in flying from Dundee or Leuchars if the terms were right.
Their potential interest then was prompted by difficulties they encountered over charges at Edinburgh Airport where they have reduced their scheduled services.
They didn’t at that time pursue their interest in moving to Tayside, but Loganair’s cut in services and efforts by airport owners HIAL to find new customers to maintain the viability of the Riverside airstrip have focused attention on other operators who may step into the breach.
Mr McNamara said: ”There is no secret that UK regional airports are suffering greatly as a result of the air passenger duty introduced by your Scottish politician Gordon Brown.
”This is really killing regional air traffic in places like Dundee, and with this duty in place it will always be difficult to make an airport like Dundee viable.”